Reiach & Hall and Michael Laird win Glasgow college gold

The competition to build the new super-campus for the City of Glasgow College has been won by a joint venture between Reiach & Hall and Michael Laird Architects.

The architects are part of the Sir Robert McAlpine-led Glasgow Learning Quarter consortium which was named as preferred bidder for the development at Cathedral Street and the Clyde Riverside ahead of a submission by architects BDP with contractor BAM.

A bid by Atkins with Schmidt Hammer Lassen dropped out of the running six months ago.

The scheme will see city’s Central College, Glasgow Metropolitan and Glasgow College of Nautical Studies combined into one education district.

The appointment comes three years after Atkins landed a capital funding-backed project for the same site (AJ 19.09.2009).

However the scheme ran into financial trouble and the new development, which will cater for 40,000 students and 1,200 staff, will instead be funded through the Scottish government’s NPD (Non-Profit Distributing) procurement process.

Lyle Christie of Reiach & Hall said: ‘There has been a lot of criticism of public-private partnership schemes but we hope to show that the [design and build] quality for the occupier need not be compromised by this process.’

Work is expected to start this summer. The first buildings are due to complete in 2015

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